Resumo de The Metamorphosis From Franz Kafka: The Complete Stories

Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find that he has turned into, or morphed into, a huge beetle. Was it a dream? No, reality sets in as he watches his many spindly legs "move helplessly" before his eyes. He is lying on his bed with a back that is hard and crusty in full view of his ugly, segmented belly. What to do? As he looks around, he finds his old room (human) just as it was when he laid his head down on his pillow. Evidence of his work as a traveling salesman is on the table; cloth samples and other items as he had left them.
As Gregor tries to go back to sleep, for it is early, he cannot because he normally sleeps on his side but he keeps rolling onto his back. After much struggle, Gregor glances at the alarm clock and notices that it is getting late. He must make the second train to work! His businessman's mind kicks in and he wonders if he has chosen the right profession; a profession that is stressful, pressured and is constantly taking him away from his family. For most of the early morning Gregor struggles, as finally his mother and father knock on his door to wake him. They surely do not want him late for work. Here is 19th century Europe where, when you are late for work, your employer comes to your house to get you, which is what Gregor's did. When he finds out what has happened to Gregor, he stomps away in disgust.

As Gregor's humanity surely and rapidly transforms into an insect's existence, he becomes painfully aware of the limits of familial love and acceptance and the inevitability of a doomed fate. Even though Gregor's body has tranformed into this huge insect, his mind is still very much human. His mind remains human up until his very last insect's breath. And up until his very last breath, Gregor still holds a love for his family, even though his family has rejected him and is the cause of his death.

Franz Kafka has managed, in only fifty pages, to write one of the most fantastical and magical stories of all time. Although the obvious is magic realism at its best, there is a deeper meaning within the pages of this story. It is the meaning of family, the meaning of what it means to be different in a world that is full of the sames. It is the story of the undying love of a son for his family and the judgment that this family pronouces on the son.

The Metamorphosis is just one of the many wonderful stories of Kafka found in Kafka: the complete stories, edited by Nahum N. Glatzer. This volume is considered to be an authoritative text.

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